Stage 5, Acceptance

[faithisbelieving]

say it ain't so...no bone OR muscle? Geez, what the heck is it?

Nope...no bone in there. Some animals like the polar bear have a small bone called an oospic. Ask Jack3Beans since he is still up there but I believe in Eskimo culture it is good luck to own one (an oospic that is).

There is no voluntary (striated) muscle in the male pe nis. There is smooth muscle in the vessels but all that 'action' is based on blood filling the 3 'pontoon-like' structures...the 2 corpora cavernosa and the one corpora spongiosum. "Mechanical action" occurs by two nervous pathways...the parasympathetic (P) and the sympathetic (S). Parasympathetic causes erection and sympathetic causes ejaculation, or, as we used in medical school, Point and Shoot.

The new drugs out there like Viagra and Cialis function, they believe, at the arteriole level by increasing nitric oxide. NO or nitric oxide causes vasodilatation or increased blood flow. The results are, well, obvious.

FIB

[faithisbelieving]

Maybe possibly, it'll be with each other, as that DOES happen in some cases. Your w may get help and may someday see things more clearly. You may also continue to grow as a man. Regardless, I seriously doubt you'll be alone all your life.

I seriously doubt this. If you could only see the way my STBXW carries herself...the downtrodden look..the cold shouldering I get...the anger.

It would never happen.

You know what the funny thing is 25. It is my WIFE...who went outside the marriage. It was MY WIFE...who made the decision to NOT RECONCILE...or even TRY TO RECONCILE. Although I have, on multiple occasions in the past, apologized...told her I would prioritize our marriage....admitted that changes should be made...did most of them..it was my wife who shirked her responsibility and to this day accepts NO ACCOUNTABILITY for where we are.

Am I saying it's her and not me. No...nowhere near that.

What IF, just what if, you find someone else down the road? What if you end up in a happy m? I mean, that has some value, doesn't it? Wouldn't that be something your kids could look to that is better than what they are seeing now?

No doubt..although I don't think I will marry ever again. Although any type of R breakup hurts, I would never want to go thru a D process again. What did Spock say in Star Trek...that beauty is transitory but love survives?

FIB

[AlexEN]

FIB,

This is exactly what I am faced with and it is so bassackwards.

It is my WIFE...who went outside the marriage. It was MY WIFE...who made the decision to NOT RECONCILE...or even TRY TO RECONCILE. Although I have, on multiple occasions in the past, apologized...told her I would prioritize our marriage....admitted that changes should be made...did most of them..it was my wife who shirked her responsibility and to this day accepts NO ACCOUNTABILITY for where we are.

Yet, she wants us to go on as "friends" for the kids' sake and accuses me of being vindictive and judgmental because I feel that that is unrealistic and too painful for me to contemplate now, as she has made no effort to even TRY TO RECONCILE or to rebuild any sort of trust. She wants to be family, but not "husband and wife". Would she want a friend who has treated her as she has treated me?

-AlexEN

[25yearsmlc]

Correction Jeff, FIB is focusing on what he thinks she thinks, what he thinks she feels and wants and needs etc and frankly, I doubt she knows any of this, let alone thinks/feels/wants/needs them consistently.

She's confused and confusing and blaming. Oh well. FIB, you are so not alone in this. But your kids are near you, and you're healthy, and all that stuff.
Focus on you and GAL. What are you doing that is GAL for you?
(( j ))

[25yearsmlc]

FIB,
can you look at Mircal3s thread "on the brink of divorce"? Needing some men's input there. thanks,
j-

[25yearsmlc]

Are you crazy man? I loved everything he said!. BTW, I HATE it when H asks me about his work and for me to make a call to someone on his behalf for work. For the life of me, I have never asked h to do that for me. He may be trying to show me that he is involving me and not hiding anything, but I really like what your guy said. That's why I'll cut h slack on it.

But to see these feelings in writing... articulated so well from a man, was nice. As a woman, I guess the feminist in me hates to admit it, but I don't want to have to worry about everything----"the hunter not getting any meat when he leaves the cave, AND wanting me to keep the cave warm, the offspring alive and also, I have to go get some of the meat since h isn't working full time...and oh by the way, the hunter says he also wants to know my thoughts on where the herd of meat might be next year????

Don't know if this makes sense and I'm sorry if it seems selfish. It's just that I DO want protection and security and fidelity from h and need h to be strong. But let me add, if there's a noise downstairs and h goes to investigate, I'll be right behind him carrying whatever stick I find, I won't scream hysterically and uselessly, will definitely kill or die to protect the babies, and will HELP my mate...

Also, I want h to kill spiders and any other bugs...

((( j )))

[25yearsmlc]

FIB,

Just read your posts to me. Thank you. You've helped me more than you know, with the whole other side of so many things. Articulating what it means to you to be a healer, and what you want/need in a mate. Your words as a doctor, father, and a h, and a man in general are so articulate that I was often very moved by them.

(( Side note---Our s22 is a NYC actor and was in a play by Charles Mee called "Big Love"--[not about polygamy]--in one scene, the actors articulate the differences between men and women and it was so evocative and well written-- to see our son perform it made me weep, for so many reasons...You can read it online and look for the long 'speech' by Constantine...when well acted, it's incredibly moving and of course it was well acted)

I hope you don't leave the boards here. It isn't just about whether you can save your M, but also how you help other m's. You do. And you help women more than you know. You have helped me to be a better mother, and woman, and wife. I don't know the future of my m, but when I say that DBing helped me more than any other one thing, you are a big part of that.

No, you won't be single forever. Just hoping you stay on the track you are on as a man, and check with us when you meet "her". You know, to get our approval and all...

Hope this post doesn't break some DB rule. Again, thank you FIB. I always look for your posts to others as well. You help people a lot. I might even print out your thread for my weekly ego boost.

FYI, my old hard drive died some time back so I'll have to hunt for your email address but hope to find it and touch base there. Not sure why they banned it, but anyhow...thanks so much.

((( j- )))

[smith18]

Some of the 'doctor facts' that are out there include:
-doctors have one of the highest divorce rates
-doctors make terrible parents because of lack of focus on the kids vs their patients
-doctors have one of the highest crash rates with regards to flying private planes: because of feelings of 'omnipotence', they will takeoff under adverse weather conditions that most flyers would not. They also buy bigger and more powerful planes (one in particular called a Bonanza) that brings on a crash.

I also read that doctors are more prone to sea sickness because they try to self analyze the inner ear balance problem and thinking about it only makes it worse. The best way to avoid sea sickness is to be distracted or keep busy doing something else. And it does not help to tell a person who is sea sick that it is all in their head.

[25yearsmlc]

Naturally I want to chime in here...I heard some doctor on the radio (so it must be true) say that actually, the divorce rate is not significantly higher for doctors than other professions. I think lawyers have a higher one, fwiw. My guess is it depends on when you measure the m's beginning in relation to the career's time. I suspect those who marry before the training is over, endured, don't know what it'll be like and can't know until they are in it. Too hard to adequately explain.

I was married to h for the whole 'becoming a doctor' shebang, as our son was 8 weeks old when h began med school. But when we married he was a veterinary student, not a med student. When we married, we did not expect to go through what we did. Neither of us really knew what was involved when h signed on for the career change. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd just said, "no, don't do it. Enough of the schooling." But it didn't really occur to me to say that. Also, I was pregnant while h applied to med schools and that's why h had the miltary pay for his med school. Seemed "Safer" at the time. As FIB said, we make choices based on what we knew at the time and the tools we had then.

The biggest problem is that the toll it takes on marriage is in part b/c the long hours seem to be unrelenting. When the doc is home, he/she is exhausted and usually occupied with studying for the next case/day, so they're still not really home. Most spouses will find themselves wondering wth they were thinking getting married before or during the formative years of doctor's education/training. My guess is that the couples who make it through those years of med school, and residency then, once accomplished, are just as likely to stay married as any other couples.

But the couples facing all those years ahead of them, indeed face so many hurdles with so few respites with long periods of insufficient time together, often fail to survive. We know many couples who began as we did, married before med school and the % of those who made it through, was less than 40%. The couples who married after residency have higher success rates, but those who married before the training AND stay married through it, have the highest success rate, which may level the stats so much it's hard to know what to make of them.

I know Those 8+ years suck. But they're the benchmark I think. That's why there's a whole sub-culture with doctor's wives at our gatherings where we'll ("we" meaning the First Wives) often look at W#2, (or #6), etc, as women who've "cut in line" and are swimming in our pools...

Seriously, my first "doctor's wives club" event was something I dreaded. I worked as counsel at the hospital so for me, I was at an event of client's wives. But one remarkably frank woman, (whom I later came to love), actually came right out and said, "Oh, you're 'J' the L,' and you sleep with our h's when they're on call, right?" I replied, "no, you're confusing me with the nurses and female doctors;...I sleep with the L's suing your h's..."

So, um, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, the whole doctor's divorce rate...well, who cares? Those rules don't apply to US!

(( j ))

[25yearsmlc]

I understand what you mean about your wife being the one with the A [color:#CC0000]and [/color]the one who won't reconcile. It's weird. H had the mlc and I'm the one doing the DBing AND the one who went to the t's and mc's and read the books, etc. Guess one person can make a difference in the R of 2 people.

Anyhow, I'm looking for your post about the muscle vs. bone vs. cartilage missing in the male anatomy "thing we were discussing...." etc. Where'd it go? I digress.
j